


The Surviving Children

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Series: Two Jedi Walk Into A Mandalorian [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Obi-Wan Kenobi, Broken Families, Child Death, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Female Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mandalorian Culture, Mercy Killing, Young Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22429891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: Obi-Wan was in the briefing room at the Temple with Rex when R2-D2 burst into the room, but she almost anticipated that.The nightmare the night before had left her jittery.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Two Jedi Walk Into A Mandalorian [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553227
Comments: 33
Kudos: 401





	The Surviving Children

**Author's Note:**

> And so it begins.

_She heard the screaming first, the way it abruptly went quiet._

_She heard something sounding suspiciously like a body slumping to the floor, then some blaster shots._

_She did as her mother said to do, hiding herself in the deepest recess of her closet, underneath piles of old clothes and toys. The civil war as unforgiving, she'd been warned, and if it came to their door, she was to save herself then contact her grandmother on Concord Dawn._

_So she hid._

_She remained there, though the awful sounds of things slamming around, doors breaking off their hinges. She controlled her breathing even as she heard her older sister got trapped under what sounded like the China cabinet._

_She didn't move when she felt the wall next to her, where her brother's bed was pressed, shudder with the force of an impact. She suppressed a whimper when she heard him, barely two years older than her, begin to cry out for help only for there to be another strike on the wall, followed by a wet crunch._

_She squeezed her eyes shut so she couldn't imagine it, but her gift made it all too clear. She could feel his body slumped against the wall, barely alive but left for dead._

_Heavy boots moved into her room, starting to tear through it, before she heard another adult enter the house. The footsteps of the intruder turned, abandoning her room to face the new threat._

_The ensuing battle felt like it took forever, and she recognized the sound of her mother's voice, her swearing and vicious snarls. Maybe it would be okay._

_Her grandmother had always favoured her daughter over her son, her daughter being the more powerful fighter. Her mother had done the name of the Mando'ade proud, until she met the man who would sire her children - a civilian man, a glassworking artisan._

_She waited when the house went quiet, waiting for the return of the heavy thud of boots. All she could hear was her mother's soft panting._

_She crawled out of her closet, careful to avoid all the squeaking boards. She slunk down each stair individually, body poised to flee at the first sound of danger. She was as tense as a loaded spring when she set foot on the main floor, trying to ignore the broken furniture and evidence of blood while sneaking along the wall until she could peer into the living room._

_The sight that met her was the worst thing she'd ever see._

It took Rex fifteen minutes to get Obi-Wan's open, vacant eyes to focus on him. 

" . . . Rex?" She finally managed, blinking slowly like she was coming out of a fog. She scanned the room, clearly dazed, then seemed to notice all the floating knives, hovering around her and Rex in a circle, pointing outward. "What happened? Are we on Coruscant?"

"You got back from your delivery mission with Kano six hours ago and wanted to take a nap before you had to report to the Temple." Rex's concern was sharp enough that she managed to pull her focus together, back from the past. 

The weapons all clattered to the ground. 

She slumped forward into his arms, not even bothering to repress the tears. Rex didn't ask, just held her tightly, so reassuringly real.

* * *

Obi-Wan's presence in the Temple was jittery and unnerved, despite her cool facade, and it grated against those around her as though she was wrapped in sandpaper. 

She didn't fidget or act out of character, but she was clearly troubled, even as she was attentive and knowledgeable during the briefing. 

An astromech rushed into the room, falling down the stairs in its haste, and slamming headlong into the other one giving the briefing notes. 

"R2?" She asked, pushing the droids apart. "By the Ka'ra, what are you doing here?"

A series of alarmed beeps and whistles sounded. 

"Let him play the message, M7."

The other droid pulled back and R2 plugged himself in, playing a clip of Anakin and Mace, with Mace unconscious, telling the mech to go to the Temple for help. 

She spun to Plo Koon. "Grab the Pack. We've no time to waste."

"At once." He replied, rushing out of the room with the Mando hot on his heels.

| | |

Aboard the cruiser, she was informed by Anakin who Mace thought it was, why he might have done it. 

That was when the Temple received the ransom demand.

"Ponds, you said?"

Rex and Ahsoka nodded over the transmission. 

"I want an insurgency team of five and a Jedi shuttle brought to this cruiser." She ordered, fists clenched on the edge of the console. 

"Do we even have the authority-?" Ahsoka started. 

"I didn't realize I asked a question." She barked back, standing to her full height. "Get it _done._ "

"Yessir." Ahsoka replied, looking more than a little nervous. 

"Are you sure this is the wisest course of action?" Plo Koon asked. 

She was practically vibrating with tension, ghosts floating in her head. "There is no other option. I made a commitment."

Plo Koon studied her for another long moment, both of their expressions masked, before he nodded sagely. "I would expect nothing less."

"Good." She snarled it like she was being challenged. And she was, but not by him. She gentled her demeanour. "My apologies."

"I, too, have found brotherhood in my men. I am not surprised one without such constraints as a Jedi would bond so closely." He replied, crossing his arms. "Be safe, be rational, and fight fiercely, Mando."

"Thank you, Master _Jetii."_

| | | 

_"I was, uh," She clutched her stomach, blood dripping from between her lips, "wondering what had become of you, my brave one."_

_She knelt in front of her mother, ignoring her uncle's traitorous blood pooling around her, staining the beige fabric of her pants. "What do I do, Mumma? What do I do?"_

_From her boot, her mother pulled a durasteel knife. "This will be hard, but you must do as I say. It is for the best."_

_She nodded, gripping the blade handle fiercely. "What?"_

_"You must go to each body and slit their throats."_

_She went to drop the knife, but her mother's hand around hers was firm._

_"You must." She implored. "He intended for them to die long and slow. You must bring them peace, quickly and cleanly."_

_"Mumma, I can't." She shook her head fiercely, copper hair flying everywhere. "I can't do it!"_

_"You can." Her mother insisted. "You're strong, strong like beskar. Nothing can bend you, nothing can break you. These are the fires you are forged in, my child, my youngest. You are my survivor, and you must do this. For me."_

_She nodded through the tears, getting up on shaking knees and going upstairs, where she knew her brother was._

_His head was smashed in, but he was still breathing. She knew what her mother had meant - there would be no recovery for him. He would die here painfully, one drop at a time if she was not merciful._

_She went up to him, shaking harder than ever, and felt for his weak pulse._

_"Forgive me, Jaskar."_

_She slid the blade over his neck, flinching back from the spurt of blood. She felt him, through her gift, dissolve and vanish._

_Her older brother and two sisters were downstairs, so back down she went._

_Her other brother was laying over her father's corpse, his neck snapped pretty cleanly. Her father had a blaster shot in his forehead._

_As she had thought, her eldest sister was trapped under the China cabinet with a large spike of the wood through her chest. She was unconscious, barely breathing, but anyone could see that the injury was fatal._

_Her shaking had calmed, but she felt detached, like she was watching herself. She slit her throat as well, the blood soaking her hands and the knife. Her other older sister was in the kitchen, her stomach torn open and glistening wetly._

_She pressed the sticky knife into her throat and pulled across slowly, feeling at once too aware and nearly faint._

_She returned to her mother, finding her slumping forward._

_"Is he already dead?" She asked, gently weaving back and forth as she stood at her mother's side._

_"Yes. He's certainly dead."_

_"Do- Do I have to do you too?"_

_Her mother collapsed onto her side, the extent of the damage to her body much more clear. How had she managed to defeat and kill her uncle with her body torn apart like that?_

_"Please." Her mother did her best to keep her voice level. "You must."_

_She knelt next to the older woman, feeling even less like herself than before._

_"You're a survivor, my child." Her mother breathed. "Never let yourself be prey. That's not who you are. That's not what I named you for."_

_"I won't." She managed through the choking tears. "I promise."_

_"Good girl." Her mother took her hand, guiding the knife to her throat as well, her last expression a gentle smile._

_By the time her grandmother arrived to stop her son, the blood on the young girl's hands was old and black._

_"She told me to." She said, offering up the knife._

_"You did the right thing, dear one." The old woman pulled her into her arms, regret and anguish washing over her. "You've done good."_

_When the authorities came, her grandmother and her were already on a ship back to Concord Dawn._

* * *

"We're making a mistake." Boba muttered again, but Aura had had enough. 

"Look, kid, do you want to kill Mace Windu or not?"

"I do, but-"

"Then shut up."

In retrospect, Boba was grateful for being pushed aside, because it meant he wasn't in the line of fire when the Mandalorian from the cruiser entered instead of Mace or any Jedi. 

She had a beskarad in each hand, and she cut down Aura's impatient thug, then Bossk. Aura's blaster was expertly flicked from her spindly hand, the barbed end of the beskarad at her throat. 

"Where are they?"

Aura sneered. "Kenobi. I should have known."

"I'm not going to ask a second time." She pressed the barbed tip underneath Aura's chin, the finely honed edges easing into her skin with no effort. 

"I'll take you to them!" Boba cut in. "You can have them."

Kenobi stared at him through the helmet for a long, suffocating moment, before she pulled the blades back. "Restrain Singh, Captain."

"Right away, sir." The clone following her answered, cuffing the bounty hunter even as she sneered at him. 

"Take me." Her tone brooked no argument and Boba was quick to snap to her command. 

The walk to the holding cells was not long, but the silence was suffocating, the danger radiating off her. 

"I understand."

He looked up at her. 

"I understand why you want to kill Windu."

He swallowed. "You do?"

"I do. I lost my family to war as well. But there is a crucial thing you fail to understand."

"What?"

"Jango went up against an opponent because he chose to. He had no obligation to fight. It was his own poor judgement that got him killed. Windu is no assassin."

He bristled. "He killed my father."

"You father made his choice. He lost. The cycle of retribution has to end somewhere. Otherwise, for this offense against my brother, you owe me your life. Ka'ra forbid if you've killed him."

He looked away. "I won't forgive him."

"I don't expect you to." She said. "But I know you were smart enough to recognize the gyrfalcon."

"How did you know?"

"Your face is plain as day."

He had no response. He opened the cell door, revealing the Admiral, Ponds and Nav Officer Jasper perfectly intact. 

Ponds offered her a crooked smirk. "Fancy meeting you here, sister."

"Likewise." She turned to Boba. "Uncuff them."

He did as he was told. 

"Rex and some others are above deck." She told them. They left with grateful nods, Ponds stopping to hug her briefly. 

Along again, she knelt before the child at her feet. 

"I didn't know what else to do." He admitted softly, his hard facade breaking apart in the face of something so familiar. "They all left me behind."

"The Kyracyk clan is sworn into the Fett Family, and your father was Mand'alor, which deserves respect." She said. "So I will give you three choices. The first, you remain here and continue your revenge, bearing in mind that if you or any you consort with harm one of my brothers, I will take your lives in return."

He nodded, not much liking this so far. 

"Second, I take you and return you to Jango's family on Concord Dawn and we part ways there. Third, I welcome you into my family, as my own, on the condition that you relinquish your vengeance."

"You want me to just let him go?"

"I want you to heal and begin again." She cupped his cheek. "I was offered this chance, to be saved from loneliness and fear. I'm extending that to you as well. You are not beyond love, child."

He felt his eyes begin to wetten, that buried longing for a parent bursting free of its confinement in his chest. 

"Which do you want?"

"I'll-" He swallowed, trying to control himself. He was shaking, repression and need warring against one another until he simply threw himself into her arms, the familiar press of body-warm beskar making his heart hurt all the more. 

"I have you, child." She murmured, petting his hair. "You will recover. You're a survivor."

* * *

* * *


End file.
